And Then There Was Her

by Tagan Shepard

  “Did you know that everything from that spot,” she indicated a general line stretching from the fire pit on the patio off into the distance, “to the west used to be my vineyard? The whole back end of Minerva Hills was mine. CS bought it from me when we split up.”

  “It’s good land. That’s where all the pinot noir is. Why’d you sell it?”

  “I needed to be farther away. To start over.” She drained her glass. “I’ll be honest enough to admit that I couldn’t deal with the fact my girlfriend made better wine than me.”

  Madison knew how much the admission cost her and all the defensiveness leaked out of her. “You’re all artists here. The wine you make is incredible.”

  Laura laughed her usual, mirthless laugh. “CS is an artist. Most of the rest of them are amateurs. I’m just obsessive and competitive.”

  Drack came over with an open bottle, tried to engage Laura in conversation while he refilled their glasses but gave up quickly in the face of her polite, if dismissive, answers.

  Madison hoped the interruption would change the course of the conversation, but she wasn’t so lucky.

  “In the end it was my insecurities that made me leave CS,” she admitted, drinking steadily. Madison had caught CS’s eye again and they were battling not to grin at each other across the room. “We didn’t really love each other in that all-consuming way. Not like this.”

  Madison blushed when Laura accompanied her last words with a little flick of her wrist indicating the way they were staring at each other.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She meant it, but when she looked at Laura, she didn’t see the sad, broken woman she expected. She saw a woman who knew her own limitations and how they had caused her pain, but she didn’t feel sorry for herself.

  “You will be.” Laura’s face hardened, and her eyes locked on Madison, holding her in place with an almost hypnotic intensity. She spoke with deliberate care, caressing each word. “If you ever hurt her the way I did, I will personally ensure that you die in a fire.”

  “Wow. That’s…specific.”

  “Don’t think I won’t do it.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You better be absolutely fucking sure you’re all in or you need to get out now.”

  Madison had never actually felt fear of another human until this moment. She thought she had, but no one had ever looked at her the way Laura looked at her right now. Like she could cut an artery and watch Madison bleed out on the flagstones at her feet without a drop of remorse.

  “CS will pour everything she has into you, so you better be ready to take it. If you aren’t, go back to your cottage, pack up your shit right now and get out.”

  Laura’s words echoed in Madison’s ears as she walked home, hand in hand with CS through the empty night. It was a threat and a warning, but it was also a plea. She was worried about someone she cared about, and Madison could understand that. What she hadn’t anticipated was how she now shared those concerns.

  CS kept so much of herself hidden, played her whole life close to the vest. Madison had never been like that. She had always been wild, kept everything on the surface. Even as her life had calmed since Robert died, she was more impulsive than CS could ever be. She found herself comparing her relationship with Kacey to Laura’s with CS and she was not at all comforted with the similarities.

  She and CS both had a tendency to shut out the world in favor of their work. It seemed clear that, for CS at least, that included her romantic passions. Madison wasn’t at all sure she was the same way. Kacey had pursued her until she relented. No matter how invested she was in the relationship three years on, perhaps she hadn’t really thrown herself into their shared life. Now Kacey was only a few months gone and here Madison was sleeping with someone else.

  What if Laura’s concerns were justified? What if she did hurt CS? She didn’t intend to, but her intentions and her actions didn’t always line up. There was a chance—a good chance given her history—that it was in Madison’s nature to push people away. If she was honest with herself, part of the wedge that came between her and Kacey was her distance. She was desperate not to do that with CS, but did she know any other way to live?

  “What were you and Laura talking about for so long?”

  CS’s voice was light, but Madison couldn’t help wondering if CS had read her mind. “Nothing really.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Laura.” CS laughed. Genuinely, beautifully laughed into the night, reminding Madison of the way that husky sound turned her inside out with every syllable. “She’s not one to waste words.”

  Madison pushed herself closer to CS, needing as much contact as possible just now. “She certainly isn’t.”

  “Look, if it’s a problem having her around…”

  “It isn’t.” CS didn’t look like she was taking Madison’s word for it just yet, but she wasn’t prepared to voice her real fears. “Really. I don’t have a problem with your past with Laura.”

  “I just want you to know that it is the past.”

  Madison tried to force down the fear bubbling inside her. One afternoon of sex in the woods and CS was already willing to disrupt her life. If that didn’t lend proof to Laura’s assessment, nothing did.

  CS cleared her throat. “I never got the chance to ask if your work got off okay.”

  “Everything went fine.” Madison leaped at the change of subject. “The storm delayed them, but Boots says he kept the guys from drinking all my beer. He left a note.”

  “I think it’s wonderful that you live on a winery that makes top shelf wine but you have a fridge full of cheap beer.”

  “It’s not cheap beer. It’s brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water.”

  “Cheap, bad beer.”

  “I’m a starving artist, I can’t afford your wine.”

  “You may have access to a discount.”

  She said the words with a wide grin, but they made Madison’s stomach curdle. The teasing banter felt too comfortable, too soon. When a sharp snap of wind blew her bangs into her eyes, Madison gladly took the opportunity to drop CS’s hand and push them back into place. CS came to a stop outside Madison’s cottage. She’d forgotten to leave a light on and the building was in shadow.

  CS kicked at a large rock, bent and picked it up, hurling it off into the distance and watching it a little longer than was necessary. Madison saw her vulnerability creep back as it had when they arrived at the stables as the sun set. Fear wrapped in desire, seeming to make her both weaker and stronger all at once.

  CS spoke first, the thin patina of calm spread over her doubt clearer than ever. “I’m fine with just going home if that’s what you want.”

  How could Madison have found a woman like this? A woman who thought of nothing else but Madison’s comfort and happiness. A woman who constantly put her own needs aside for Madison, even before they were lovers. A woman who was patient and kind. She was everything Madison had ever wanted and nothing she deserved.

  It occurred to her then, with the darkness all around them and the moon refusing to light even the smallest sliver of the world, that she stood to hurt CS far more by pushing her away. Her only option, and her body was proving the truth of it even as she formed the thought, was to throw herself all in. To give in to her need and her desire. To admit how much she wanted CS and how much she wanted to be wanted by CS. Her past was undeniable, but CS was her present and CS was just as undeniable.

  Madison reached out and took her hand, using it to pull her close. When their bodies were connected in a million delicious places, she pressed CS’s hand into her own back, needing the sensation of being held so close.

  “That’s not what I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  CS leaned close to kiss her, but Madison stepped away, still leading her by the hand. She took CS into the house, locking the door behind them but not bothering to turn on any lights.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Late
morning sunlight pounded at Madison’s closed eyelids for hours before finally succeeding in waking her up. She came into consciousness slowly, languidly. Her body refused to move and her mind tended to agree with the sentiment. She vaguely remembered blinking at the sound of her front door closing, but wasn’t sure if that was real or part of her dream. Either way, it had been a century ago and she had drifted off to sleep again after.

  Sadly, she now saw the pillow beside her was empty, as was the mattress. She rolled over onto her back, tiny aches shouting from all of her muscles. Without a clock in her bedroom, she didn’t know what time it was, but Madison had no doubt it was late. Closer to afternoon than morning. It wasn’t surprising that CS was gone, but Madison would have much preferred to wake up to her touch.

  Looking over again, she saw a branch of lavender on CS’s pillow, tucked into the still-visible indentation from her sleeping head. That thought alone made Madison smile. CS had slept in her bed. She reached over and plucked the lavender from the pillow, pressing the flowers to her nose and closing her eyes to take in the fresh fragrance. Images from last night flashed across her closed eyelids. A wide smile crept across her face as she remembered each and every sensuous moment.

  They had made love in the dark without the urgency of the woods but with the same passion. Well after midnight they had fallen, exhausted, into deep sleep, Madison holding CS close in a cage of her arms and legs, feeling complete.

  The phone cut through Madison’s memories, dragging her unwillingly back to the present. She discarded the sheet, but held the lavender tightly while she searched for her robe. The ringing stopped, but immediately started again. It had to be Jada. Only she would be so insistent.

  “Hey Jada. Sorry, I was working.”

  “Liar.” Madison could hear the tap of Jada’s keyboard in the silence that followed her greeting.

  “Well, I should be working. Doesn’t that count?”

  “No, it doesn’t. But I’m not calling to chastise you. There’s amazing buzz around your next show. I decided to make it a ticketed event.”

  “That’s good news, right?”

  “It’s spectacular news. That is if your work makes it here safely. I never got a call from you to tell me they arrived and that it all went well.”

  “Sorry. I got distracted. Yes, everything went off without a hitch.”

  “So the moving company worked out?”

  “Of course. Tell me this isn’t the first time you used them?”

  Madison didn’t hear her answer, if she gave one. Sitting on the counter next to the phone was a sheet of paper with a short note. She read it and the whole world went silent.

  Dinner?

  –CS

  Eight simple letters, but they were enough to set off a riot inside Madison’s body. The smile that had faded when real life intruded returned. Her mind wandered to all sorts of things, starting with a pleasant chat over a plate of spaghetti and ending with Madison flat on her back on the dining room table. She let the thoughts coalesce until she heard a shout in her ear.

  “Hello? Hello! Did your phone drop the call?”

  “No, sorry.” Madison put the note down, setting the lavender on top of it and turning before her thoughts wandered again. “I’m here. Just…”

  “Distracted. Right. I don’t suppose that distraction is a muscular, tan, butch winemaker who walked out of every one of my wet dreams, is it?”

  Madison couldn’t help but giggle. Not only for her giddiness when she thought about CS but for the muffled shuffling on the other end of the phone and the distant but clearly disgruntled sound of Jada’s husband in the background. She traced the pen lines with her fingertip while Jada gently reassured him of her devotion. CS wrote with a heavy hand, the single word and signature cutting deep into the soft paper. In this, as with everything it seemed, CS was strong and assured.

  “Sorry, dear,” Jada said, her voice dropping and the sound of a door clicking gently shut proving she’d smoothed things over. “You know how men are.”

  “Not really,” Madison admitted. “He’s not mad, is he?”

  “Nothing a little flirting can’t fix. Besides, he says I’m far too vanilla for CS. Is he right? Just how wild is she? I crave details.”

  “She’s not wild.” Her doubts from last night came creeping back, threatening to spoil her good mood. She opted to shift focus. “Besides, you’re married to a trans guy half your age, clearly you’re the more adventurous of the two of us.”

  “Oh please, being trans doesn’t make Samuel wild. His idea of an adventurous night is ordering a Stout. Although I will admit the hormones make him extremely…vigorous, even for his age.”

  “That’s more than I needed to know.”

  “You brought it up.” The sound of nails clicking on teeth came through the phone, a sure sign that Jada was scheming. “I must admit I just assumed CS was on the wild side since you are.”

  “I’m not wild, I’m just…” She tried to find words to explain the way she felt these days. Like she’d just woken up from a three-year bout of amnesia. She didn’t recognize the person she’d been with Kacey. That person didn’t feel like her anymore. “Open to suggestion.”

  “And what precisely is CS suggesting?”

  “Dinner.”

  “A date, huh?” Madison heard the door open on Jada’s end of the phone and could tell by the smile in her voice that Samuel had just entered the room. “A date sounds perfect.”

  It did sound perfect. The only problem was finding the right outfit, surprisingly difficult for Madison as she’d never been much interested in fashion and had a limited wardrobe. She settled on a thin sundress that was light enough to be pleasant in the heat and hugged her curves just enough to show she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. She wanted CS drooling over her.

  She strolled down to the stables earlier than necessary. She hadn’t been out riding in a while now, and she thought she’d drop in on the horses first. Boots was hauling the barn door shut, but let her in.

  “You look nice,” he said, his hands on his hips and sweat rolling down his forehead. “Something special going on tonight?”

  “Just dinner.”

  After a confused look at his surroundings, the penny finally dropped for Boots. He grinned even wider and shot a glance over his shoulder toward the second-floor windows of CS’s apartment.

  “No wonder she’s in such a good mood. I haven’t seen her stop work this early since her dad was here. Thought she’d hurt herself and was too proud to admit it. She’s getting old, ya know.”

  “I’m totally gonna tell her you said that.”

  “No way you guys are talking about me tonight.” He gave her a wink and headed off. “Have a lovely evening.”

  The cool shadows of the stable felt glorious on her skin. Madison couldn’t seem to get cool enough these days. The heat of summer hadn’t arrived, but still her skin rippled with warmth every moment, like she was running a low-grade fever she couldn’t kick. The dim light and earthy animal smell of the stable was pleasant enough to take her mind off the evening to come. There was a serenity here, with the soft snorts of the horses and hay dust floating in the air.

  Violet stuck her head out of her stall and Madison immediately went to her. She nudged Madison with her big, velvety nose, wriggling beneath her arm. Running her fingers down the broad expanse of Violet’s nose, Madison marveled at how powerful the animal was. Her body, now stripped of saddle and blanket, surged with muscles. Her coat gleamed in the lamplight. She blinked her huge eyes lazily as Madison stroked the soft hair disappearing into the flesh of her nostrils.

  “You smell wonderful, Violet. Did you just get a bath? I can tell you’ve been brushed.”

  She shook her head gently, casually flipping her mane. Madison laughed at her playfulness, laying her cheek against Violet’s face. They sighed in unison, Violet’s breath stirring the fabric of Madison’s dress.

  “You’re a pretty girl, aren’t you?” She laughed whe
n Violet gave a soft, answering nicker. She stroked over Violet’s cheek, wishing she had thought to bring a sugar cube. “You are. Such a beautiful lady.”

  “You sure know how to make a girl jealous.”

  CS’s voice was as low and reverberant as Violet’s, but it had Madison wanting to do far more than pet her cheek. Violet shook a little more forcefully, still gentle but definitely wanting to dislodge Madison this time. Madison couldn’t blame her— she wouldn’t want CS thinking she had eyes for anyone else either.

  She had to lean against the stall door when she saw CS. Jada had been teasing when she said CS looked like she’d walked out of every one of her wet dreams. In Madison’s case, it was absolutely true. CS leaned against the wall near the open door, wearing clean, crisp clothes, her hair still damp from the shower and a half smile on her face that could melt the ice caps. Madison squeezed both hands into fists just to feel the bite of her own nails into her skin.

  CS was quiet for a long time, letting her eyes travel the length of Madison’s body and back again. She may as well have licked her lips, and Madison enjoyed the scrutiny. They surveyed each other long enough for Violet to get bored and snort, heading back to her stall window.

  The hint of a smile made CS’s lips twitch when she asked, “Aren’t you going to come over and say hello?”

  “I’m not sure my legs are working,” Madison replied honestly.

  CS pushed herself off the wall and strode over with a swaying, languorous strut.

  She placed her palm flat against the stall inches from Madison’s ear and leaned in close. That clean cotton and mint scent was there as always, but it was mixed with a musky, burnt vanilla that may have been her shampoo or may have been an hallucination. CS leaned closer, eyes locked on Madison’s lips.

  “Do you want me to carry you?”

  With a groan Madison pulled their bodies together. All she could think of was their first time in the woods, the way CS held her up for what felt like hours. The way her strength seemed boundless. Madison wanted to test that strength. To test her stamina, but right now, she wanted to feel CS’s lips.